Ogden half marathon...my 5th half...my favorite!

This past week I had the opportunity to run in the Ogden Half Marathon. I said "opportunity" because the Ogden half is a lottery pick. There are so many people that want to run this race that you put your name in and hope they draw your name out to race.

One of the "not so good" things about this race is that they do not offer "Same day packet pick up". So that means I had to drive up to Ogden on Friday just to pick up my racing packet. They did have a runners expo with booths to visit...but nothing too fabulous.
 

This is the running bib, shirt and timing chip. Love a good long sleeve running shirt :)

The timing chip is different then any other I have ever used. It has a sticky part that connects to the other end. I didn't have any problems with it, but I did see two runners along the race that theirs kept falling off and they actually had to run back and pick them up. Not cool!

On Saturday we, yes me and my whole family, woke up and left the house at 3:30 a.m. The family wanted to support me in my race....but they also figured that if we were in Ogden that it was half way to Logan...and we might as well just drive to Logan and see the new baby my sister had.

This is me in all my 3:30 a.m. glory haha

We drove to Ogden with plenty of time to meet the buses that were leaving promptly at 5:00 a.m. But we didn't anticipate the amount of traffic that would be going to the same spot we were. We sat on the freeway off ramp for 10 minutes, I started to panic a little. Then when we got into town they had closed off the streets that led to where the buses were. So Shawn dropped me off, about 2 blocks away and I ran to the bus...getting there at 4:58 a.m.

The bus drove us up the canyon, around the north side of Pineview reservoir. It was so beautiful. When we got off the bus the sun was just coming up over the mountain, the moon was still out and the skies where clear. It was going to be the perfect day for a long run!

Now as I was riding the bus the family was trying to find a parking spot and go back to sleep for 3 hours. The girls decided to stay in their pajamas while Austin said he wanted to wear his running clothes...just in case he decided to go for a little jog??!! From what I heard no one really got any sleep... there was a lot of giggling going on...and even a few songs from Frozen were sung.

And before you know it the race had begun. Shawn had downloaded a free app that allowed you to follow a runner with their timing chip. He could see my pace and what mile I was at...it was kind of cool :) 

The kids had to take a picture with this horse statue.

 

Here I come!!!!

And there I went :)

It was actually a very emotional race for me...I had a few little personal revelations while I ran my 13.1 miles. A blog for another day...or really good stuff for Young Womens lesson:)  I had two friends that were running the race. I didn't see them the whole time. I just wanted to beat them haha...and maybe set a new Personal Best. I did that...I beat my old time by more then a minute. My new PB is 1:47:17...and when I saw my family cheering for me at the finish line I cried like a baby!

Here is my cool finishers medal :) And my stats :
476 out of 3886 overall runners
48 out of 598 women in my age group
Not too shabby! The race itself was AMAZING!!! I had my fastest mile ever on this course, 7:39! There was only one major hill at 1.2 miles...it was about a half mile long, and a few other little ones. It was a true "canyon" run. The scenery was breathtaking. If ...I said IF, I ever decide to run a full marathon...it would be this course.